Posted on 06/17/2008 11:22:31 AM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON — The Arabs who vanquished Al Qaeda in Iraq's Anbar province are counseling America to allow Afghans to form irregular militias and be mindful of their devout adherence to Islam, according to a memo from the Anbar Awakening to the American Embassy in Kabul.
A rough English translation of the memo, which outlines an "awakening" strategy for Afghanistan and was originally prepared in Arabic at the request of the American deputy chief of mission there, Christopher Dell, was obtained by The New York Sun and confirmed as accurate by the military.
The Afghanistan front has been a worry for America and its NATO allies. During the weekend, terrorists carried out a daring jailbreak in Kandahar. General David Petraeus, who has been nominated to lead Central Command, which includes Afghanistan, has said he intends to reassess Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts in its northwest border provinces, believed to be home to Al Qaeda's senior leadership. And the Sunday Times of London has reported that President Bush enlisted the British special forces in a bid to capture Osama bin Laden before the November presidential election.
In the memo, the Iraqi sheiks offer to send diplomatic and military delegations to Afghanistan to identify potential rebellion leaders and share strategies for fomenting an anti-Qaeda rebellion.
"It is suggested for this project to be successful to send a delegations of 3-5 Sahwat Al-Iraq military and political leaders to explain and clarify the essential requirements to implement and succeed in the experiment," the memo says. "Explain how to prepare and plan the fight just like Sahwat Al-Iraq did and achieved against Al-Qaeda."
The sheiks must be aware, however, of the strict form of Islam practiced by many Afghans. "It is important not to infuriate influential public leaders, particularly the community religious leaders, mosque's preachers, mosque's imams, school,"...
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Huh? That was the key to defeating Al Qaeda in Irsq???
One of the key strategies of the Anbar Awakening model was to identify imams and mosques that did not favor Salafism, the form of Islam that Al Qaeda imposed.
Thah was one of them. You also had five more brigades added with the surge and a change in how the troops were deployed tactically to give security to the civilian population. The remainder of the paragrah cited was pretty much standard civil affairs/psy-ops.
be mindful of their devout adherence to Islam,
Nope. Wrong Answer.
Islam is the problem and enemy. Instead of treating it as such we are legitimizing and bolstering it. ...and paying to do that with billions and BLOOD.
Our failure to use maximum force had made us grovel and beg for forgiveness for the slightest infraction. ... while we are the ones allowing them a free life.
As long as we support a government with a constitution that states NO LAW SHALL CONTRADICT ISLAM
WE contradict our own Constitution.
Obviously, one doesn’t want to totally alienate the locals. But making ourselves the advance brigade for any form of Islam is totally nuts, and in fact, this approach slowed us down enormously in Iraq and cost many American lives.
The Muslims have got to sort their religion out for themselves. We can show them that we’re not hostile to letting them practice it, but on a secular/political level, it’s got to be within certain limits and a certain structure in places in which we are in control. No beheading of infidels, for example. And no enforcement of sharia, except on people voluntarily within their particular group (and even then without the amputations, beheadings, stonings and other penalties of sharia).
One of the reasons that British-controlled Afghanistan is flaring up again is because of the ineffectual British “softly softly” approach. Heck, that doesn’t even work in the Muslim areas of Britain, let alone elsewhere.
Nope. Absolutely clueless. Events on the ground in Iraq prove this dogma completely clueless. Wonder when the facts on the ground in Iraq are finally going to penetrate the welded shut minds of the Freeper Arm Chair Generals?
You all have been completely wrong for years now in trying to force your Convention War peg to fit the Counter Insurgency mission hole. Rather then scream this "Total War" dogma louder, maybe you all best just finally admit you have no idea at all how to fight this sort of war.
Anbar "turned" when the locals got fed up with the Taliban. The most difficult provinces of Afghanistan are well on the way to the same tipping point. The mission is - kill key Talibani, force the Taliban to become more unpopular and kick them out whenever they infest an area. Sorry it's not happening fast enough for you.
Absoultely untrue. No base in fact to this claim at all.
I agree that they don’t want the Taliban, but expecting Islam to fight Islam for us is not workable.
Er, if we hadn’t kowtowed to Mookie because of his perceived Muslim influence, he’d be a lot less powerful nowadays and a lot of Americans would still be alive. Getting involved in Muslim politics - which we do not understand and to which we should not adapt - basically undercuts our entire program. There were probably many people in Iraq who thought we would release them from Islamism (which Saddam had adopted over the last few years) and then they found out that we were just looking for what we perceived as the most “moderate” Muslim group to support. Since there’s no such thing, this was probably not a good strategy.
Incidentally, the Brits discovered this in Afghanistan over 100 years ago, and it’s odd that they’re repeating the same mistake.
Given the history of U.S. backing for “irregular” movements in the Middle East, in general, (i.e. against the Soviets in Afghanistan), this is an idea that U.S. dollars and U.S. participation - vis-a-vis Afghanistan today - should totally avoid.
If the Afghan government and the Iraqi government want their own agreement in this area, funded and run by themselves, let it be 100% their business, not ours.
I agree with most of the basic points of the post, especially “The Muslims have got to sort their religion out for themselves. We can show them that we’re not hostile to letting them practice it, but on a secular/political level, it’s got to be within certain limits and a certain structure in places in which we are in control.” This is a great point, one worth investigating a bit more.
“One of the reasons that British-controlled Afghanistan is flaring up again is because of the ineffectual British “softly softly” approach.”
Can’t really agree with this, all video and news coming from the British sectors in Afghanistan shows large scale war-fighting. Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul is the heartland of the Taliban, this is where their ideology first gained power in any meaningful sense. So, here is a link to a post that looks at the Brits in Helmand; follow the links to get a really good video of what the Commandos are up to.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2032342/posts
Sheriff: Gun protests misdirected (The Rev. Jesse Jackson!)
'Open carry' guns at our children's risk
Swiftboat THIS MUST READ!
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Thanks for the ping!
I agree that they don’t want the Taliban, but expecting Islam to fight Islam for us is not workable.
After 9/11, I thought all of Islam was bad. Then during the earlier part of Iraq insurgency, I thought it was even worst. Then in 2007, the Anbar Awakenings, (Sunni TRIBES) started to turn the tide against al-Qaida, and with our surge strategy and General Petraeus, Iraq has improved to a point where there were less deaths in Iraq last month than Afghanistan.
Who is doing a lot of the fighting and why has the situation in Iraq finally changed? The Iraqi's ... obviously Islamic. To me, I'm starting to think, it's not the religion thats the entire problem, but the way it is practiced (Wahhabi)
I say, lets try the Awakening strategy. Good Islam can fight bad Islam as it seems to have worked in Iraq.
Good Islam = as good as it can get, as I am not sold on it probably due to my heritage, (was brought up with a background in both the Jewish and Christian religions)
How do you propose we get rid of millions of people practicing the Islamic religion? [or the Islamic religion itself] (I'm not being rude or smart, I am curious as to what are some of the ideas floating around)
Given the history of U.S. backing for “irregular” movements in the Middle East, in general, (i.e. against the Soviets in Afghanistan), this is an idea that U.S. dollars and U.S. participation - vis-a-vis Afghanistan today - should totally avoid.
We need to avoid participation in an irregular movement full of (Wahabi's)[aka extremist's, jihadists]
I'm leaning towards trying the Awakening in Afghanistan. specially if General Petraeus thinks it should be tried as it has worked in Iraq and lots of awakening members are joining police, army, etc. It could open up the doors for lots more recruits for the Afghan National Army.
The other choice to solve the problem in Afghanistan is more troops. I'm not sure if that will fix the problem, the more Soviets who came to Afghanistan, the more rebellion occurred. I'm glad I'm not making these decisions, as they are just to hard to call.
I'm hoping for something soon either way, the Taliban are pushing their luck and need to be dealt a big blow again.
It starts where we left off in WW2.
We beat two professional armies much larger than ours with our navy mostly sunk. These countries where full of brain washed Nazis and Japanese shinto kamakazee nuts.
How did we beat them>
It starts where we left off in WW2.Your take is revisionist and not applicable to the current situation.We beat two professional armies much larger than ours with our navy mostly sunk. These countries where full of brain washed Nazis and Japanese shinto kamakazee nuts.
How did we beat them
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